Charles Fowler (17 May 1792 – 26 September 1867) was an English architect, born and baptised at
Cullompton, Devon. He is especially noted for his design of market buildings, including
Covent Garden Market in London.
Life
Education and early work
Fowler was born at Cullompton, Devon on 17 May 1792, and baptised there on 26 December 1800. He was educated at
Taunton Grammar School.
In 1814, after serving an apprenticeship of seven years with John Powning of
Exeter
Exeter ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and the county town of Devon in South West England. It is situated on the River Exe, approximately northeast of Plymouth and southwest of Bristol.
In Roman Britain, Exeter w ...
,
[ he moved to London and entered the office of David Laing, whom he assisted on the designs for the ]Custom House
A custom house or customs house was traditionally a building housing the offices for a jurisdictional government whose officials oversaw the functions associated with importing and exporting goods into and out of a country, such as collecting ...
.[ He then set up his own practice, working from an address in Great Ormond Street, and later, from 1830, at 1, ]Gordon Square
Gordon Square is a public park square in Bloomsbury, London, England. It is part of the Bedford Estate and was designed as one of a pair with the nearby Tavistock Square. It is owned by the University of London.
History and buildings
The sq ...
.[
Fowler generally worked in a classical style, often freely interpreted. ]Thomas Leverton Donaldson
Thomas Leverton Donaldson (19 October 1795 – 1 August 1885) was a British architect, notable as a pioneer in architectural education, as a co-founder and President of the Royal Institute of British Architects and a winner of the RIBA Royal Gol ...
described him as "gifted with a practical rather than an imaginative turn of mind.".[ An important early work was the Court of Bankruptcy in ]Basinghall Street
Basinghall Street (sometimes written as "Bassinghall") is a street in the City of London, England. It lies chiefly in the ward of Bassishaw (originally the street and the courts and passages leading off from it) with the southern end in Cheap ( ...
, completed in 1821.[ This was a substantial brick building, raised over a granite basement and stuccoed in imitation of rusticated stonework.] It had a courtyard, two sides of which had open arcades, supported on square granite columns.[
In 1822 Fowler entered the competition to design the new London Bridge, and won first prize, with a proposal for five-arched bridge. However, the scheme was rejected by a committee of the House of Commons, and the commission awarded to John Rennie. Four years later he rebuilt the bridge across the ]River Dart
The River Dart is a river in Devon, England, that source (river), rises high on Dartmoor and flows for to the sea at Dartmouth, Devon, Dartmouth.
Name
Most hydronyms in England derive from the Common Brittonic, Brythonic language (from which ...
at Totnes
Totnes ( or ) is a market town and civil parish at the head of the estuary of the River Dart in Devon, England, within the South Devon Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. It is about west of Paignton, about west-southwest of Torquay and ab ...
in his native Devon.[
]
Markets
In 1818 Fowler began work on the new market at Gravesend
Gravesend is a town in northwest Kent, England, situated 21 miles (35 km) east-southeast of Charing Cross (central London) on the Bank (geography), south bank of the River Thames, opposite Tilbury in Essex. Located in the diocese of Roche ...
in Kent, with a pair of colonnades, 80 feet long, connected by a covered building at one end.
In around 1826, the Duke of Bedford
Duke of Bedford (named after Bedford, England) is a title that has been created six times (for five distinct people) in the Peerage of England. The first creation came in 1414 for Henry IV's third son, John, who later served as regent of Fran ...
commissioned him to construct buildings to house the market in the Piazza at Covent Garden, which until then had been accommodated in sheds and hovels. There, as in many other of his buildings, he used Haytor granite mined in Dartmoor, partly for its strength and partly out of a desire to encourage an industry in his native Devon.[ Just across the ]Strand
Strand or The Strand may refer to:
Topography
*The flat area of land bordering a body of water, a:
** Beach
** Shoreline
* Strand swamp, a type of swamp habitat in Florida
Places Africa
* Strand, Western Cape, a seaside town in South Africa
* ...
, on a site sloping down towards the Thames, he later built Hungerford Market
Hungerford Market was a greengrocer, produce market in London, at Charing Cross on Strand, London, the Strand. It existed in two different buildings on the same site, the first built in 1682, the second in 1832. The market was first built on th ...
.[ His involvement with this project predated his designs for Covent Garden, as he had been asked to survey the site as early as 1824, but the act allowing the work and incorporating the company was not enacted until May 1830. Fowler's building was finally opened in 1833. Donaldson praised the way in which Fowler exploited the complex, multi-level site, describing the "playful picturesqueness of the group, where court rose above court, galleries above galleries, and where the series of roofs outtopped each other." In this building, Fowler demonstrated his preference for lightweight construction. He later added an iron roof over the main courtyard. Later in the 19th century the building was demolished to make way for Charing Cross Station.][
He later designed the Corn Market at Tavistock (1835) for the Duke of Bedford and the Lower Market at Exeter, where he also supervised the construction of the Higher Market, following the death of its architect.][
]
Conservatory at Syon House
In 1827 he designed and built a Conservatory at Syon House
Syon House is the west London residence of the Duke of Northumberland. A Grade I listed building, it lies within the 200-acre (80 hectare) Syon Park, in the London Borough of Hounslow.
The family's traditional central London residence had b ...
for the Duke of Northumberland
Duke of Northumberland is a noble title that has been created three times in English and British history, twice in the Peerage of England and once in the Peerage of Great Britain. The current holder of this title is Ralph Percy, 12th Duke of N ...
. This ambitious building, which still exists, is composed of several glasshouses of varying width and height, with a total frontage of ; the central tropical house is in the form of a Greek cross, with a glass dome wide.[
]
Churches
At Honiton
Honiton () is a market town and civil parish in East Devon, situated close to the River Otter, Devon, River Otter, north east of Exeter in the county of Devon. Honiton has a population estimated at 12,154 (based on 2021 census).
History
The ...
, Devon, Fowler built the church of St Paul (1837–8) in what Nikolaus Pevsner
Sir Nikolaus Bernhard Leon Pevsner (30 January 1902 – 18 August 1983) was a German-British art historian and architectural historian best known for his monumental 46-volume series of county-by-county guides, ''The Buildings of England'' (195 ...
described as "the Norman style, or at least with plenty of Norman motifs". Fowler's roof there was of an experimental design, incorporating cast-iron ribs supporting a cement and tile covering; this, however, had to be replaced due to the excessive amount of condensation it collected. His other ecclesiastical work included a chapel at Kilburn[ and several churches in the Gothic style,][ including:
* Church at ]Teffont Evias
Teffont Evias is a small village and former Civil parishes in England, civil parish, now in the parish of Teffont, on the River Nadder, Nadder valley in the south of Wiltshire, England. Edric Holmes described the village as "most delightfully si ...
, Wiltshire, later dedicated to St Michael (rebuilding and enlargement, 1824–26)
* St John the Evangelist, Hyde Park, London
Hyde Park is a , historic Listed building#Heritage protection, Grade I-listed urban park in Westminster, Greater London. A Royal Parks of London, Royal Park, it is the largest of the parks and green spaces that form a chain from Kensington P ...
(1829–32)
* St Andrew's church at Charmouth
Charmouth is a village and civil parish in west Dorset, England. The village is situated on the mouth of the River Char, around north-east of Lyme Regis. Dorset County Council estimated that in 2013 the population of the civil parish was 1,31 ...
, Dorset (1836)
* St Mary's church, Bickleigh, Devon (rebuilding and enlargement, 1839)
Hospitals
In around 1842, after winning a competition, Fowler built the Devon County Lunatic Asylum, designed on a radial plan of the panopticon
The panopticon is a design of institutional building with an inbuilt system of control, originated by the English philosopher and social theorist Jeremy Bentham in the 18th century. The concept is to allow all prisoners of an institution to be ...
type pioneered at Millbank Prison
Millbank Prison or Millbank Penitentiary was a prison in Millbank, Westminster, London, originally constructed as the National Penitentiary, and which for part of its history served as a holding facility for convicted prisoners before they were p ...
. He was also responsible for the London Fever Hospital[ in ]Liverpool Road
Liverpool Road is a street in Islington, North London. It covers a distance of between Islington High Street and Holloway Road, running roughly parallel to Upper Street through the area of Barnsbury. It contains several attractive Terraced ho ...
, Islington
Islington ( ) is an inner-city area of north London, England, within the wider London Borough of Islington. It is a mainly residential district of Inner London, extending from Islington's #Islington High Street, High Street to Highbury Fields ...
, a commission he received due to the influence of the Earl of Devon
Earl of Devon is a title that has been created several times in the Peerage of England. It was possessed first (after the Norman Conquest of 1066) by the Redvers family (''alias'' de Reviers, Revieres, etc.), and later by the Courtenay famil ...
. The circumstances caused some controversy as a competition had already had been held to choose a design, and one by David Mocatta had been formally decided upon by the committee. This however, was set aside and Fowler brought in to carry out the work.
Other works
He entered many architectural competitions,[ coming third in the contest for the Nelson monument in Trafalgar Square with a proposal submitted jointly with the sculptor R.W. Sievier. He was architect and surveyor to the Amicable Society, and to the West of England Fire and Life Insurance Office.][The West of England Fire and Life Insurance Company was acquired in 1894 by Commercial Union Assurance Company, which in 1998 merged with General Accident to form CGU. In 2000 ]Norwich Union
Norwich Union was the name of insurance company Aviva's British arm before June 2009. It was originally established in 1797. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index.
On 29 April 2008, Aviva a ...
merged with CGU. He was employed by Sir Ralph Lopes, the Bishop of Exeter
The Bishop of Exeter is the Ordinary (officer), ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of Exeter in the Province of Canterbury. The current bishop is Mike Harrison (bishop), Mike Harrison, since 2024.
From the first bishop until the sixteent ...
, and the Courtenay family for whom he executed considerable alterations and additions to Powderham Castle
Powderham Castle is a fortified manor house in Exminster, Devon, south of Exeter and mile (0.4 km) north-east of the village of Kenton, where the main public entrance gates are located. It is a Grade I listed building. The park and gar ...
.[
One of his last buildings, constructed in 1852 was the hall of the Wax Chandlers' Company, of which he was a member, and eventually its Master.][
]
Institute of British Architects
Fowler was a founder-member of the Institute of British Architects, and served as its honorary treasury and later vice-president.
Exhibited work
He exhibited at the Royal Academy between 1825 and 1847.
Later life
He retired from architecture in 1853, and died at Great Marlow, Bucks, on 26 September 1867.
File:Butterflyhousewidescreen.jpg, The conservatory, Syon House
File:The Great Conservatory - Syon Park - geograph.org.uk - 21279.jpg, The conservatory, Syon House
Notes and references
* Jeremy Taylor, "Charles Fowler (1792–1867): A Centenary Memoir", ''Architectural History'', 11 (1968), pp. 57–74+108-112
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fowler, Charles
1792 births
1867 deaths
People from Cullompton
19th-century English architects
Architects from Devon